Dodgers (4-2)

It’s probably not a good time to discuss the shorter fences at Petco Park.

Six road games into a dismal start to the 2013 season, the Padres have been outhomered 10-1 and outscored 40-14.

At 1-5, the Padres are off to the sixth-worst start in franchise history and their worst first week since 2002. Only one major league team ranks behind the Padres in pitching and only three have a team batting average under the Padres’ .204 mark.

Today, however, could mark a new beginning.

The first home game of any baseball season is a time of hope. This is that time for the Padres. And they will be unveiling the changes to Petco Park before a sellout crowd. New dimensions. New scoreboard.

New start?

That is the hope — although the wounded and underachieving Padres will open their home season against a Los Angeles Dodgers team that has spent its way into a co-favorite’s role in the National League West with the reigning World Series champion San Francisco Giants.

The Dodgers of Matt Kemp and Adrian Gonzalez will be facing a Padres team minus two of the three players they expected to have in the middle of their 2013 lineup at the end of last season.

And let’s be clear here. Kemp and his teammates didn’t have a lot of problems reaching the old fences at Petco Park while winning nine games in the Padres’ home last season. Kemp hit three homers — half the Dodgers’ total — in 31 at-bats at Petco Park last season and has seven homers at Petco Park in his career.

The shorter fences in right might be more immediately inviting to Dodgers left-handed hitters like Gonzalez and Andre Ethier than a Padres lineup minus Chase Headley and Yasmani Grandal.

Of course, the Padres knew they’d be opening the season without Headley (who is sidelined with a fracture to the tip of the bone in his left thumb) and Grandal (who still has 44 games to go on a 50-game suspension that won’t expire until May 28).

What they couldn’t afford was slow starts from the players subbing for the pair.

With Headley’s original designated replacement, Logan Forsythe, also on the disabled list for at least another month with plantar fasciitis, the task of picking up for the loss of Headley fell to left-handed hitting second baseman Alexi Amarista and journeyman third baseman Cody Ransom.

Amarista got hit two hits Sunday after an 0-for-14 start. Dating back to last season, Amarista is hitting .075 with a .109 on-base percentage over his past 55 plate appearances. Ransom is 0-for-6 with three strikeouts.

And after a strong spring, the Padres had hopes that catcher Nick Hundley would get off to a fast start in the absence of Grandal.

But Hundley — who opened the 2012 season by going 0-for-21 en route to a .157 finish — is off to a 2-for-15 start with six strikeouts.